#apoemofwriting

[apoemofarsoninspace]

As the haunting music plays, everyone is still, waiting for the rat to reveal themself.

Suddenly, Jacob, Don's right hand man and lover, tips over, the trenchcoat he always wears falling flat and open. From the flopped over brown fabric pours a veritable horde of rats, all swarming at Don's feet.

The music grounds to a halt, and the silence that fills the room could choke.

Finally, someone speaks up. "Guess this explains why you'd always complain about his skills in the bedroom."

The mass of rats squeak in unison as though terribly offended, and a couple of the gang members start cackling.

Don puts his head in his hands and screams.

The Don of the New York Mob has brought all his most trusted lackies to a party, as he believes one is a rat. Since none of them fess up to being said rat, the Don pulls out a flute, said to have once belonged to the one and only Pied Piper.

[apoemofarsoninspace]

I didn't think it would work. I hadn't lived as long as some people, but I'd lived a good amount of time. I'd seen a lot of things before the angel in the velvety black cloak picked me up from the middle of that road.

I'd seen court videos of murderers screaming their innocence for everyone to hear even after tremendous mounds of evidence were compiled against them and everyone knew what they'd done. I'd seen the best, most kind-hearted people in the world profess absolutely vile hatred for themselves, as though they couldn't even begin to comprehend that they weren't the worst people on the planet.

There was no way this system would work. Monsters would end up in paradise, and heroes would burn for eternity.

"Can I change my mind?" I asked.

The thing shrugged, though how a being made of nothing but wings and eyes and solidified Nothingness did that I couldn't tell you. "Yeah. A lot do."

"Do I have to choose right now?"

It gave that impossible shrug again. "Nope. You've got until the end of infinity to decide. Take a seat."

There weren't seats there when I entered. . .whatever this was. Even after the thing gestured with the flap of a wing, there still weren't any seats, or solid ground, or anything really. Still, I sat.

I managed to pull my stare away from the thing's plethora of eyes and down to the nonexistent ground beneath my nonexistent shoes. Where did I want to go?

Well, obviously, I wanted to go to Heaven. But though I was an atheist until that angel showed up on the edge of the road, I knew some of the basic requirements.

I'd never murdered anyone, or kicked a puppy or anything evil like that.

But I'd stolen. A candy bar from the grocery checkout isle, when I was a teenager. A ring from my mother's jewelry box that was supposed to go to my brother when she died.

I'd lied. Thousands of times, to hundreds of people. About feeling well, or feeling sick. About my age, about my height, about my weight. How much money I had, whether or not I had a driver's license, if it was my brother that broke the window or me.

And I'd had bad thoughts, awful ones. I'd wished a broken leg upon my father when he yelled at me, I'd fantasized about breaking up my best friend and their girlfriend. My last moments were filled with hate, vitriol. After I'd realized just how bad my injuries were after that car hit me, I wasn't filled with love or forgiveness.

I wanted whoever was in that big red truck to die, painfully, horribly, and experience unending agony and torture afterwards, forever.

But was that enough to condemn myself to Hell?

"What makes you deserving of Heaven?" I asked the thing.

"That's not for me to decide. I'm just here to tell you what to do."

"Is there a third option? For people not good enough for Heaven, but not bad enough for Hell?"

It clicked a tongue it did not have. "Nope. Just Heaven and Hell. And here, I suppose. Like I said, you've got eternity to decide."

"What if I never do?"

"Then I guess you never do. Then you stay here, until infinity proves to be finite, or until the Universe runs too cold to keep even the afterlife running."

"Can't someone else decide for me?" I begged. "No matter what I pick, I know I'll be wrong. Can't you pick one for me? Or God?"

"No. This is your choice, and your choice only. I'm just here to tell you the options."

"What about God? Can't He choose, shouldn't He be the one choosing to begin with?"

I'd lived a long life. Not as long as I'd hoped, but long enough to know how things worked. In school, you didn't choose your grade, your teacher did. It wasn't your decision on whether or not you got accepted into college, or hired for a job, or got that promotion. No matter how high up the totem pole you dragged yourself, there was always someone higher.

Except that I was at the top of the totem pole now, and there was no level higher.

"Is God real?" the thing asks, the first time it said something that wasn't a statement.

I faltered. The incessant leg bouncing I was always prone to in life, and apparently in death as well, stopped. "What do you mean, is God real? Are you trying to tell me that Heaven and Hell and the afterlife and angels and whatever the fuck you are���that's all real, but God isn't?"

I'd thought only God or priests could decide what was blasphemy, but in that moment unmarked by time, I decided that what the thing had said right there was blasphemy. Pure, sinful, blasphemy.

"I did not say that God isn't real, I just asked you if you think They are. Do you?"

"I don't know!" I shrieked, sound echoing even though it had no reason to. "I don't know anything! Until a few minutes ago, I had no idea that the afterlife actually existed! My entire life, I was under the apparently mistaken impression that after you kicked the damn bucket, all that waited for you was just emptiness! I thought there was an actual end, not a stupid choice that I have no idea how to make!"

"It's easy though," the thing said with a flutter of its wings. "Do you deserve Heaven?"

"I don't fucking know!" I screamed. I wondered if down on Earth, or up on Earth or sideways on Earth or wherever my planet was in relation to me, anyone could hear me. I certainly felt loud enough to be heard.

"Well then, do you deserve Hell?"

"I don't—" I started. Something rose in my throat, even though I wasn't too sure I even had a throat anymore, and I swallowed, hard. "I don't think so," I finished, in a much quieter and scratched-up voice. "I hope not."

"So Heaven," the thing said, with an air of finality.

"But what if I don't deserve it?" I asked, looking into its eyes for the first time since I looked down.

"Then change your mind once you realize you were wrong."

"But what if I'm wrong when I change my mind? What if I go to Heaven and then decide I'm meant for Hell, then go to Hell and realize that it's worse than what I deserve?"

"Then go back to Heaven. You can always change your mind, even after you already have."

"But what about murderers! What if they choose Heaven even though they deserve Hell, or only go to Hell for five seconds and then go to Heaven?"

Every one of the things eyes pivoted to look at me. "That is not your problem. This is your choice, not theirs, and their choice is theirs, not yours. If you need more time to think, you have an unlimited supply of it. But I don't think you do."

I shakily inhaled, and looked away from it to wipe my eyes. "Okay. Okay." I sighed. "Take me to Heaven."

“Welcome to the afterlife. Do you want to go to Heaven or Hell?” “Wait, you’re asking me where I want to go? You don’t decide it based on how I lived my life or anything?” “Nope, it’s entirely your choice.”